Saving the Girl Next Door

by Susan Kearney

  With him in the picture, extra precautions had to be taken. And if necessary, as a very last resort, the daring duo could be taken out.

  But first there were other less drastic actions to be tried.

  VINCE HAD DIED just last night? A coincidence or bad luck? Piper wondered. During her years as a street cop and then these past six months as a detective she’d learned to trust her instincts, and right now those instincts were screaming that Vince’s death was no accident. If his death proved to be murder, setting her up probably hadn’t been his idea. However, a good cop never jumped to conclusions.

  “Mrs. Edwards, I hate to intrude on your sorrow, but could we come in and speak to you for a few minutes?” Jack asked. “My name is Jack Donovan. I had wanted to ask your son about an investigation I’m working on. I wonder if I could ask you instead?”

  The grief-stricken woman opened the door and gestured for them to enter the apartment, which was overcrowded with furniture. A sagging couch, a torn love seat and two tattered recliners left little room to walk. Dozens of pictures were thumbtacked to the wall, mostly of half-naked women. Newspapers and magazines sat in lopsided stacks against one wall and lay scattered across a scratched coffee table. A black cat curled up on one arm of the sofa, seemingly undisturbed by their presence.

  “Would you care for a cola or coffee?” Mrs. Edwards asked politely.

  “No, thanks.”

  Mrs. Edwards sat down, motioning toward the recliners across from her. Jack took a seat, while Piper remained standing beside him. She had a hundred questions in her head. Her innate curiosity had made her a good cop and had enabled her to pull her share of criminals off the street. She’d even wondered if one of those criminals might have gotten even with her by setting up the faked bribery charges, but she’d never found a connection between anyone she’d put behind bars and either of the men who’d accused her of taking bribes. Her investigation had gone nowhere but down dead ends, so she wanted to see how Jack would steer the conversation.

  Jack looked around the room. “Did your son have a computer?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “What did he use it for?”

  “He liked to play games. That was why wife number one divorced him.”

  “Was he into hacking?”

  “He barely graduated high school.”

  The facts that Vince had worked a blue-collar job and hadn’t done well in school didn’t mean he wasn’t some kind of self-taught computer guru—but the odds of that were unlikely.

  “Was your son in any kind of trouble?” he asked, his voice sympathetic.

  Mrs. Edwards frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Did he have any problems at work?”

  She shook her head. “He’s been at the same company for the last five years.”

  “Was he into drugs or alcohol? Gambling, maybe?”

  Vince’s mother might have been distressed, but she was one sharp lady. “Are you saying Vince’s car wreck might not have been an accident? The police didn’t say that, but they didn’t give me any details.”

  “What do you think?” Jack asked.

  Up until this point, Mrs. Edwards had struck Piper as honest and forthright. A mother in mourning, dealing with shock and grief and anger at her sudden loss. Yet, at Jack’s question, she hesitated a moment too long, as if considering her next words with care—too much care.

  Mrs. Edwards wrung her hands. “Just why are you people here?”

  Jack ignored her question and asked one of his own, an interrogation technique that Piper had often employed successfully as a detective. “Did Vince have a girlfriend?”

  “Some tart named Ellen Jo Dasher. She still has some clothes in Vince’s closet.”

  “How long had they been together?” Jack asked.

  She shrugged.

  “Does he still have contact with his ex-wives?”

  “I don’t keep track of Vince’s love life. We aren’t…weren’t that close.”

  “What about his male friends?”

  “The guys at work, but no one in particular that he was especially close to.”

  The picture she’d drawn of her son was that of a loner, possibly someone emotionally dysfunctional—but not necessarily a criminal. Piper still couldn’t think of any motive for the man to have set her up.

  “Did your son come into any unexpected money recently?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did he say he’d won big at lotto? Or bingo?”

  “Vince was always broke. He usually called when he needed money—which he never paid back.”

  “How much money?”

  “Whatever he could weasel out of me. Fifty here, a hundred there. I live on my telephone company pension, and I’m not a rich woman.”

  Jack stood and handed Mrs. Edwards a business card. “I’m very sorry for your loss. If you come across any information that might mean someone was after your son, or you just want to talk, please feel free to contact me.”

  Piper had remained silent long enough. “Ma’am, my name is Piper Payne. I used to be Detective Piper Payne.” Piper watched the woman’s eyes for any sign of recognition, but saw none.

  “You used to be?”

  “Your son never mentioned me?”

  Mrs. Edwards lifted a pair of glasses from her neck to the bridge of her nose and peered at Piper. “You don’t look like his type. Are you one of his ex—”

  “Your son accused me of taking a bribe.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “To get him out of a traffic ticket.”

  For the first time, Mrs. Edwards avoided their gazes. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “I was fired. And I was hoping you might know why he would lie.”

  “My son wasn’t a liar. At least, he never lied to me.” Mrs. Edwards sighed. “You might want to speak to Ellen—maybe she knows more….” She wrote Ellen’s address on a piece of paper and handed it to Piper. “Good luck, dear.”

  Despite Mrs. Edwards’s seeming cooperation, Piper couldn’t help wondering what the woman was hiding. As they walked back to Jack’s car, she wished she had more to go on than a hunch.

  “She wasn’t telling us the whole truth,” Jack said, confirming her own suspicions.

  “Why did she feel she needed to cover for a son who is no longer alive?”

  “Maybe habit.” Jack opened her car door for her. “And lots of people don’t want to speak badly of the dead.”

  “I wish we had copies of his credit card bills, bank statements and phone records.”

  “That can be arranged.” Jack grinned at her, that wide, reckless grin that made her believe he was up to something rash.

  “I don’t want you breaking the law.”

  “Why? You going to arrest me?”

  “Jack—”

  “I won’t do anything my boss doesn’t approve of.”

  She sighed. “Why doesn’t that make me feel better?”

  “Look, you played by the rules and got fired. Who’s going to complain if we bend them a little? Certainly not Vince Edwards. He’s dead.”

  “Is that how you salve your conscience?”

  “Nope. That’s how I salve yours.”

  “Jack—”

  “Let me do what I do best.” He donned his sunglasses. “Now, what kind of info can you get from the police department?”

  “What do you need?”

  “Anything you can find out about Vince Edwards’s car accident.”

  He’d changed the subject to distract her, but she really didn’t want to argue, especially when he was trying to help her. “I still have a few friends in the department. If I can’t get my hands on that accident report, I can probably find out what’s in it.”

  Jack handed her the cell phone. “Make the call.”

  While Jack started the car and drove, she spoke to the police officer in charge of writing up Vince’s accident.

  Dissatisfied with the answers she’d received, she flipp
ed the phone closed and handed it back to Jack. “They’ll have more for me after the mechanics go over the car. It appears to have been a two-car accident on a mostly deserted road. The other driver left the scene, but initial findings indicate that the paint scratches came from a dark-green car. They are hoping to match the factory paint to a make or model.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “None. When Vince’s car collided with a telephone pole, he died instantly.” She glanced at Jack. “It could be murder. Or a simple hit-and-run by a drunk driver or just someone afraid to come forward.”

  “Even if Vince was murdered, his death might not have anything to do with you,” Jack reminded her.

  “So are we going to Vince’s girlfriend’s house next?”

  “First I’d rather visit the other man who accused you—before he also has an accident.”

  LEROY JAMES LIVED in a stuccoed two-story colonial house in an upscale neighborhood on the intracoastal waterway. The house boasted a broad front porch and tall white columns that were welcoming yet pretentious. The deed-restricted community was the kind with lots of rules. No garage door could face the street. No satellite dishes could be mounted on the roofs and no unsightly motor homes or pickup trucks could park in the driveways. The landscaping was lush, the underground sprinkler systems kept the grass green and the palm trees healthy, even in the tropical heat of summer.

  Jack parked on the street. “Nice place.”

  “Real estate like this costs three, four hundred grand, easy.” Piper frowned. “I can’t imagine anyone who lives here accusing me just to make a few bucks.”

  Jack didn’t turn off the engine, allowing the AC to keep running. “Why do you think someone might have paid these men to lie about you?”

  “Because they are strangers to me. And I can’t find anything Vince and Leroy have in common. They didn’t attend the same schools or hang out with the same crowds. And neither one of them seems to have connections to anyone I put away.”

  “What’s Leroy do to earn the big bucks?”

  The lot was large enough to see between the homes to the waterway. Motorboats traveled up and down behind the house. If she had a house like this, she’d be sunning by the pool or out on her yacht. “He got his money the old-fashioned way—he married it.”

  “He doesn’t work?”

  “He’s a songwriter, but he’s never made a dime.”

  “What’s his wife do?”

  “Runs an investment firm. Her father was a big-time football star. The family has lots of connections.”

  Jack took about two seconds to put things together. “They leaned on the police chief to get you fired?”

  “If they did, they didn’t have to lean hard. A cop’s word is her bond.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Once a police officer is caught lying or taking a bribe, he or she can no longer work effectively in the court system.”

  “Why not?”

  “If the chief had let me keep my job and I went to court to testify, every time I took the stand the defense attorney would ask if I’d ever been caught lying or taking a bribe. Since I would have to answer ‘Yes,’ juries wouldn’t believe whatever testimony I gave. The theory is that if I lied once, I’d lie again, and there would be no convictions so long as I was involved in the case.”

  “Okay. I get it.” Jack turned off the car and pressed a button. The hardtop slid out of the trunk and snapped into place. “You’ve never spoken to Leroy, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “So how do you know so much about him?”

  She supposed there was no harm in admitting her indiscretion to Jack. “There was an official police investigation. A friend let me read the file.”

  He glanced at her, his lips close to a smirk. “Isn’t that against the rules?”

  “Shut up, Jack.”

  She slammed the door and took pleasure in his wince at her harsh treatment of his fine automobile. She didn’t know if she was more annoyed that he found it amusing she was so uncomfortable breaking a rule or that she’d actually broken it. It was almost as if he expected her to be perfect. Well, she was far from perfect.

  A disgrace to the force, she’d been fired for lack of moral character, for cheating and lying and taking a bribe. And most of her former colleagues could barely look her in the eyes. She avoided the department, and since her entire life had revolved around her work, she’d lost not only her job, but her social life, her support group and her friends.

  Jack rang the doorbell, but no one answered.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “We check with the neighbors.” He gestured to the houses next door. “Why don’t I go right, you go left. We’ll meet back at my car and compare notes.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You trust me to ask the right questions?”

  He grinned. “As far as I’m concerned, there are no bad questions, just bad women.”

  “And the badder they are, the better you like them?” Some things never changed. Was he trying to tell her he wasn’t interested in her? She already knew that. She was too much of a Goody Two-shoes for Jack. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t fantasize about what being with him would be like.

  She’d never heard any complaints from the girls he’d gone through like a mower through a hayfield. Not even when he dumped them. But then, he tended to pick girls who didn’t expect much except a good time.

  Apparently Jack hadn’t changed. But she had. She didn’t want to hold out for Mr. Right anymore—suppose he never came along? She’d played by the rules all her life and all she’d ended up with was disappointment and pain. Piper needed a dose of Jack’s outlook—fun for fun’s sake. Pleasure while it lasted. Flushed at the peculiar direction her thoughts had taken, she shoved the idea to the back of her mind—to be reexamined for flaws late that night when she couldn’t sleep due to wanting a man she couldn’t have.

  Ten minutes later they were back in the car. She was grateful for the car’s magnificent air-conditioning, and she appreciated that Jack had changed the convertible back into a hardtop before she got a second-degree burn from the leather seat. “You tell me what you learned first.”

  Jack shifted the car into forward gear and spoke while he drove. “The family consists of Leroy, his wife, Jenette, and two teenage daughters. They’re away on vacation. Went to Amelia Island, a classy resort near Jacksonville. He spends a lot of time on the computer. They have a high-speed connection.” Jack turned into traffic. “What did you get?”

  “Apparently the couple fights a lot.”

  “Money problems?”

  She shook her head. “According to the neighbor, who seems to be a busybody of the highest order, he’s been cheating on her with some woman he met online in a chat room. Apparently he told the neighbor’s husband, who told her. His wife doesn’t know where he’s spending his time or with whom, but she’s complaining that he’s never home. I tried to get the name of the mistress, but the neighbor didn’t know it.”

  Jack patted her thigh. “You did well. That will give me a lot to go on.”

  “How?”

  “Once I get his credit card statement, I’ll look for hotel bills and repeated phone calls. From there I might get the mistress’s number and soon after her address.”

  “So what?”

  “I bet she’ll tell us more than the wife. Especially since the man is trying to appease his wife with a family vacation. The mistress will be miffed. You know what they say about a woman scorned….”

  She twisted in her seat to observe Jack. “You do more for the Shey Group than pilot the team, don’t you?”

  He evaded her question without changing his expression. “What makes you ask?”

  “You’re too well acquainted with hacking your way into private—”

  “I can hold my own. Most ex-SEALs can, and I trained in—well, it’s still classified. But another team member has even more expertise than me. If I run into trouble, I may have to ask Ryker
for help. He’ll know how to hack the police system—”

  “He can do that?”

  “I can do that—but I might get caught. Ryker knows how to go in and out without leaving a trail.”

  “I don’t want—”

  “You want your job back or not?”

  “But your methods…”

  “Work.”

  JACK AND PIPER HAD no luck finding Vince’s girlfriend, Ellen Jo Dasher, who lived in a run-down duplex. Her neighbors didn’t answer their doors, so Jack and Piper ate a late lunch, then he dropped her off at her home and arrived back at his parents’ house just in time to sign for the equipment Logan had sent him via special military transport.

  Jack’s father staggered out onto the porch. “What’s that?” Bleary-eyed from the bottle of cheap vodka he’d been swilling, he glared at the crates before Jack could lug them out of sight into the garage.

  “Electronic gear.”

  “You steal it?”

  “Nope. It’s all legit.”

  His mother joined his father on the porch, her face tight with disapproval. “You spent your good money on that junk?”

  His mother had no idea that his gear was necessary to his mission, and Jack had no intention of explaining anything to her. He’d learned a long time ago that they would never approve of him, his career or his success. Coming home had been a mistake.

  “You aren’t bringing that rubbish into my house.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…because…because it might explode,” she finished, quite proud of herself for thinking up her answer.

  “Computers don’t explode, Mom.”

  “Computers are unnatural.”

  “Right, because if God wanted people to have computers, he would have given us an Intel chip for a brain.” Jack couldn’t check his sarcasm. He knew his mom was frustrated that she’d had only one child, a boy, who refused to help her care for her “sick” husband. Years ago Jack had tried to get his father to Alcoholics Anonymous. But his father liked being an alcoholic and his mother liked being an enabler—so she could claim to whoever would listen that she was a saint to put up with him.

  His father peered at him in confusion, probably because he was seeing double. “Are you making fun of your mother?”